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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Secretary here again--this whole thread is very degrading. "I wish I could leave my high-powered, highly-paid, high-responsibility job so I can just sit at the front desk smiling and drooling, and not have a care in the world." Maybe I should become a housekeeper, a nanny or mow lawns--those people seem so happy and carefree!

Ugh.[/quote]

I'm sorry, I don't think you should feel degraded. I've had jobs that I could "leave" at the end of the day and leaving at 5:00 and I've had jobs like the one I have now that is never done, and where I could always be doing something after the kids go to bed. It's draining to never feel "off" of work. That's what is driving this thread, I think, not the idea that secretaries don't do real work. [/quote]

The thing is that not all admin jobs are the sort of thing that you can just leave at 5pm. I am a legal secretary in a medium sized firm (there are about 100 people here total including attorneys and admin people). I work for 3 attorneys who are all at various points in their career (new associate, mid-level associate and partner). Because they are all in different practice areas and need varying kinds of support, I am essentially doing 3 jobs at the same time, which is usually fine but occasionally is really overwhelming. I have on-going projects that I'm responsible for, and when I make mistakes (as everyone does from time to time), there are consequences for those mistakes. It is not a flexible position, either. I've needed to go to the dentist for about 3 months now, but we have been so busy that I have barely had time to take a quick lunch break. I do get emailed and called at home for things (not as much as at my previous firm, but it still happens).

I also cover the reception desk from time to time. That lady is in charge of booking almost all the conference rooms, doing all the catering requests, making sure that guest offices are reserved, etc. The desk has to be open, with someone answering the main phone number, from 8am until 7pm. If there is no one available to cover her lunch break, she doesn't get one. If someone calls and they're angry about something, she's always the first person who gets yelled at.

I agree with what a lot of people on this thread are saying. I am actually in this job because I don't want to deal with the major stressors that I see a lot of my friends who have highly paid and high stress level jobs enduring. But I think that all you "grass is always greener" people need to keep in mind that every job has its stressors. You might think that the stressors of my job are more manageable than the stressors of your job, and maybe they are, but maybe they're not. My best friend is a nurse who spends 12 hours a day on her feet. If she makes big mistakes, people DIE. That actually makes my boss's job of advising clients about legal issues look pretty mellow, since he gets to sit in a chair and his decisions are not directly tied to anyone's ability to stay alive.[/quote]

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